BRATISLAVA, September 14, (WEBNOVINY) — The initiative For a Civic Constitution led by left-leaning Slovak political scientist Eduard Chmelar considers the draft of new election code introduced by the Interior Ministry on Tuesday to be a mockery of citizens and fraud on the voters. “The draft would not bring any positive changes in democratizing elections, removing particracy and strengthening the power of citizens,” stated Chmelar. He criticizes the fact that the government would not carve up Slovakia into several constituencies instead of the current single one. “In spite of the promises of all governments after 1998 the system of one constituency, tightening the position of party centrals and particracy as such, will not change in Slovakia at all,” underlines Chmelar.
He also claims that the new election code will not remove discriminatory elements such as the election deposit, which he considers to be an anti-constitutional obstacle in the electoral competition. “To the contrary, the government wants to remove spending limits on amount that political parties can spend on their campaign. This will ultimately lead to electoral campaigns further going up in prices and a de-facto sale of political parties to their sponsors,” thinks Chmelar. He is also convinced that as members of the new professional election committee would be elected by parliament, this body could in fact lose its impartiality and be influenced by the ruling majority.
The initiative For a Civic Constitution opposes an electoral system in which “the deputies do not serve their voters but party chairmen and in which the electoral deposit and removing the limits on financial costs of the campaign means in fact more power of the oligarchy and disassembly of democracy”. They demand a systematic solution and a complex change of the electoral system instead of current cosmetic changes. These could be codified in a new Civic Constitution which would be adopted by citizens in a referendum. They also demand a package of election reforms which would make it possible for independent candidates to run for parliament, maximizing the value of preferential votes without any percentage limits. Chmelar and his colleagues also demand a ban on businesses giving donations to political parties and introducing tax assignation for political parties’ contributions. The initiative also demands creating several constituencies instead of one and considers the Interior Ministry-proposed changes to be insufficient and on-purpose in the interest of political parties.
The ministry decided to change the code as currently the elections are regulated by five different laws with different rules which might confuse the voters. The new code will unify the rules for all elections, make the election simpler and will also tighten supervision upon financing election campaigns. For the first time the code introduces a definition of election campaign which will, according to the proposal, last from announcing the election until a day before it takes place. A moratorium on campaigning will only be effective on the day of the election. The code does not impose limits upon the campaign’s character and neither on amount of funds that can be used. New rules for financing the campaign based upon records, monitoring and sanctions are also to be introduced.
“The new election code should bring simplification, comprehensiveness and transparency of financing the election campaigns,” informed Interior Ministry State Secretary Maros Zilinka at this Tuesday’s press conference where the proposed new code was introduced.
SITA